Let Go, Hold On
by gnbrules
Summary: You breathed life into me, John Watson. It seems only right that you should be the one to help take it away.


**Let Go, Hold On**

**Summary: You breathed life into me, John Watson. It seems only right that you should be the one to help take it away.**

**A/N: Something sad got into me, one line sticking out above the rest (the one in the summary) and this is the result. So, warnings. Very sad, though possibly bittersweet. And the actions of the characters are in a morally gray area and possibly distressing, but I also believe reasonably within character. Hopefully that warning will be enough to put off anyone who might be uncomfortable with where it goes with its somewhat dark themes; my apologies if not.**

The cane is back now, not for psychosomatic reasons but out of true necessity. His hip aches when it rains, it aches when it's sunny. Most of John's body aches all the time these days. What a curse and privilege it has been, to grow old and suffer an old man's ailments. He shakes off the young nurses who try to help him walk; he can still do that much as he makes his way down the hospital corridor. His cane is enough.

He hates hospitals, and he thinks that it's a funny thing for a doctor to hate. He also thinks he should be fonder of this one, given that his third grandchild was born here just three weeks ago. It had been jarring, really, to see the crinkled skin of his own hand touch the new flesh of his grandson's cheek. Still more jarring to realize that this boy will probably never know him. He isn't bitter about it at all, though. Eighty year old men hardly deserve to beg for more time when so many unfortunate souls will never see their twenties.

He finds the right room and laughs – he really hadn't thought about it when the nurse had told him the number, but seeing it in writing on the door is something else entirely. _221._

It's heavier than it should be to push open, but John does it just the same. Sherlock's there in bed, too many tubes attached to weak limbs, but he's sitting up at the very least.

There's a chair by the bed, and John goes to stand near it. He won't sit for fear he'll never be able to rise on his own, and he has pride enough to never be stuck calling out for the help of strangers. "The door?" John asks in way of greeting.

Sherlock slides off the oxygen mask on his face to give him a smirk that John would recognize anywhere, even though it belongs to a much younger man in his memories.

"Special favor," Sherlock says, though his voice is more of a wheeze. "Pity they don't have letters though. Almost had a nurse draw up a B, but she didn't seem too keen on me at the time."

"Ah, yes, the nurses. They told me you've been yelling and insulting them each time they come in to check on you. What's that about?"

"They weren't you."

The mere act of talking seems to tire Sherlock, and John gives him a long moment to recover and take a few inhales from the oxygen mask before speaking.

"You have to let the nurses check on you, Sherlock," says John finally, but it's missing his usual conviction. There was a time when he would have begged or forced Sherlock to heal, to get better, to fight to live. He remembers a bullet wound in the detective's chest and a fall that should have broken him. Sherlock could always perform miracles. But miracles are a young man's game.

"I don't have to do anything," Sherlock says quietly. "I'm dying, John. They know it. I know it. You know it."

John does know it, at the very core of him. He's seen the reports. Sherlock's organs are calling it quits, slowly, surely. The only thing now is the machines, the IVs, the oxygen. These things will keep him going until even those won't be enough.

Still, it seems a shame to ever _let_ Sherlock win a conversation. "Shut up you sod, you're younger than me. How come you always get to do things first?"

Sherlock's laugh is a rattling sound. "I always was rubbish at taking care of myself. I only made it this far with the help of my Doctor."

John feels the lump form in his throat but he pushes it down, down, down. He will not let Sherlock Holmes see him cry. He'd never hear the end of it. "So you've called me here to say..."

_Goodbye._

They've never been any good at it. Never. Then again, they never really had to be. Until now.

"No, John. Nothing as decidedly sentimental as that," Sherlock says, apparently reading his mind.

John raises an eyebrow and waits.

"The staff won't _let me go,_ John. These bloody machines...they'll keep me going until there's nothing left. They like believing in recovery even for lost causes. I need you to help me, one last time."

Sudden anger erupts in John's chest, the kind only Sherlock has ever been able to cause in him. He doesn't even care that his friend needs time with the oxygen mask to regain his strength.

"I won't take you off the machines, Sherlock. How can you ask it of me?" John demands.

Sherlock needs a long time to answer. Breath after breath, helped along by an oxygen tank into his struggling lungs. He's been ill longer than he's been well. This last hospital stint has not done him any favors. Finally, Sherlock manages to speak more words than should be possible for a man as sick as he is.

"How can I _not _ask you, John? You, the doctor, the soldier, my very best friend. You've always seen what needs to be done and done it. And it's always been us. The two of us against the world."

John's practically begging for his friend to understand. "_I can't_, Sherlock."

"John, listen. _Please," _he says, and John hears a begging to rival his own. An image of Irene Adler pops into John's mind then, but the reasoning behind the intrusion is hazy, and in any case, there are more important things now. Sherlock continues as though every word costs him great effort. "I was never truly alive before I knew you, John. I scoffed at the things that would have saved me. I made homes in mystery and death, before you. But you breathed _life_ into me, John Watson. It seems only right that you should be the one to help take it away."

It's these words, so profound off a dying man's lips, that shatter John's resolve. He has always done what Sherlock has asked of him. He has always been beside him, all these long years. It goes against every principle he has to let his friend suffer in the last of his life. He cannot even breathe entirely on his own, he cannot solve puzzles, he cannot be _Sherlock Holmes. _And he'd always loved that. Being Sherlock Holmes. Still, it is not without great difficulty and a break in his voice that he says, "Okay, Sherlock. Okay."

Sherlock's smile is pure relief. "Thank you, John."

"I—now?"

Sherlock closes his eyes, almost smiles. "You're here, aren't you? I'm ready."

John swallows and tries to make everything mechanical. He sets to work, quietly, averting his eyes from the bed. Monitors unplugged and silenced – they won't hear his heart falter this way. IVs taken out with tender care. Sherlock winces and seems to go paler but says not a word. It's the oxygen he'll need the most. It's the oxygen that John saves for last.

"It'll hurt some," says John, trying not to think of it but needing Sherlock to know, to really consider this now. It's the only thing, without using drugs, and more drugs are the last thing an old man like Sherlock needs. Better for a gentle nudge and to let nature do its work, though John's stomach still twists painfully at the thought.

But Sherlock has no patience for John's hesitation. Never has. "You're here," he says again, and John can understand the unsaid words, like he always could. _You're here, and nothing hurts anymore._

"Right," John swallows. "One last thing, before..." he says, stooping by his friend's pillows and brushing silver curls off his face. "I'm still not gay, you know," he whispers, and presses his lips softly against Sherlock's forehead.

The shock on Sherlock's face is enough to make laughter bubble up in John's throat even at a time like this. The bewilderment alone might keep the bastard alive another 100 years or so as he tries to work out what just happened.

Sherlock draws down his oxygen mask again and coughs out, "Well, you've never done _that _before."

"People would have talked," John says with the ghost of a grin.

"People talked anyway."

"I remember," John says, and he can't tell if he's laughing or crying now, but expects it's some of both. None of that matters now; the world could believe what they liked, but it was they who held the silent understanding. They had a friendship made of love and a love made of friendship, and that was all they ever needed.

Sherlock looks at John, and John allows himself to look back. In his friend's eyes, he finds the resolve, the preparedness, the bravery to let go. He knows without having to be told that the next words are the ones that Sherlock wishes to be his _last. _

"To the very best of times, John."

It is no surprise to either of them that the final word off Sherlock's lips is John's name.

John fights away the sob clogging his throat. "The very best, Sherlock."

Before he can change his mind, John slips the mask up and off Sherlock's face, shoves it to where neither of them can easily reach lest their resolve break in the pain of the moment. Sherlock gives a great shuddering breath with lungs suddenly working too hard. He closes his eyes and John does the same, grabbing Sherlock's wrinkled hand in his own. He may have helped but he will not watch. Rattles, gasping, Sherlock's hand squeezing so tightly but neither pull away. Soon the harsh breathing turns desperate, and then the desperation turns into silence.

Silence and peace.

He lets go of the hand after a long moment, but doesn't turn his eyes to the body in the bed. His friend is gone and he has better memories to think of, and it's those he turns to now. He sees the chair in the room and suddenly he feels so tired and weary and old.

He lets his cane clatter to the floor and walks the last few steps to collapse into the chair. He just needs to rest is all. He sits and rests and in no time he is dreaming: of 221B and long-gone Mrs. Hudson, of Sherlock in his prime and at his most infuriating. He dreams, in short, of the very best of times.

_Take my hand_, Sherlock says, and John does. Of course he does.

The dream fades after that, and then there's no sounds left in Room 221, just silence and peace.

**A/N: Yeah so. Sadness. I apologize for what I'm sure are a plethora of medical inaccuracies, but I didn't want to get weighed down in describing the reality of those - I just wanted to tell this story of a goodbye. Also, I'm curious if any readers got what I was getting at with the Irene Adler line or if that was too subtle? Reviews appreciated, as always.**


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